MUSIC for dance

subterranean rumble & sway (2015)

The 2015 Choreo-Comp season, including Subterranean Rumble & Sway, was documented as a part of Juilliard's Open Studios series. To get an inside look at the making of this project, subscribe to Juilliard Open Studios.

"Subterranean Rumble & Sway” is a piece written in collaboration with choreographer Evan Fisk. In this work we sought to evoke the environment of and interactions that strangers share in the New York City subway system. A series of musical vignettes portray different aspects of the underground world from chance meetings with an intriguing stranger, to the brutal tunnel vision of people walking through a station, to the swirl of a crowd of passengers. These are interrupted by sections over which a narrator relays pieces of story and monologue compiled from the actual words of the city’s residents. Several elements of the subway’s sound world are incorporated into the music as well including the “door closing” bells and the actual pitches of the trains’ screeching as they leave a station. I’ve attempted to attach every element of this music in a concrete way to the soundscape of the subway and do so in a way that is cohesive though not immediately recognizable. The music is not so much a photograph as it is a reminiscence.